Anti-vaxxers “not helpful” during current pandemic – Health Minister

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony has stressed that while anti-vaxxers may have their reasons for opposing vaccines, their stance is not favourable during the current pandemic when Government is seeking to protect its people from a life-threatening virus.
During one of his recent coronavirus updates, the Health Minister reminded that vaccines were fashioned to offer high protection from the virus. If a vaccinated person does contract the virus, it prevents them from developing a more severe form.
While Guyana’s vaccination programme has been seeing successes, there has been a slower uptake in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
“Globally, there are a set of people who, for whatever reason, they’re against vaccination. From time to time, they would create campaigns and try to get people not to take their vaccines. They might have their reasons why they’re doing that but certainly, it’s not helpful in a pandemic because we know that the COVID vaccines that have been developed to prevent COVID-19 are very effective.
“One of the things these anti-vaxxers have been saying is that these vaccines have not been tested properly. Well, these vaccines are the most tested vaccines in the history of the world, because apart from the clinical trials that they have gone through, millions of people across the globe have received different types of vaccines,” he underscored.
He added that if there were any problems about the vaccines, it would have already been detected with the millions of people who have since taken them. Apart from clarified safety concerns, he also expounded that some people have questioned the level of protection which these shots offer.
To this, the Minister assured that it would prevent severe infection and moreover, reduce the death toll.
Dr Anthony highlighted, “Again, we have seen that the vaccines are protective because they prevent people from getting the more severe form of the disease. Some people might get a mild infection, some might get a moderate infection and some might get severe infection…We have seen those people who get severely infected, a percentage of them would die. These vaccines would help prevent that from happening.”
This week, the goal is to administer 40,000 shots and the Minister shared, “Our teams have been training. We have lots of people now who are available to us and in addition to that, the army has assigned 400 persons to work along with the vaccination team. These persons are going to enhance the work that we do…With the amount of people that we now have, I think we can easily achieve that.”
With stakeholders such as the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana and the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha partnering to mobilise people for vaccine administration, the Minister said this arrangement was available to any service organisations willing to come onboard.
There are 100 fixed and mobile sites spanning all administrative regions, where persons over the age of 40 and healthcare workers can get themselves inoculated.
“We have some fixed sites so you can go there any day and the vaccination teams will be working there. In every region, we have created fixed sites and we have widely publicised where those sites are in those regions. Then we have mobile teams and those would be moving from community to community, getting persons in those communities to come out and get their vaccination. With those mobile sites, we have been partnering with a number of organisations,” the Minister detailed.